Page 71 of No Kind of Hero
“I waspolite.Her mother’s my mother’s best friend. Although I can’t see why. My mother’snice.Yes, she’s mistaken. Yes, she’s overinvolved. But she’sdecent.She’skind.Shecares. Shewasn’t the one saying all that.”
He sobered. “She was the one saying it nine years ago. And you were the one listening. If I didn’t have faith in you—maybe I had my reasons.”
It had been so much easier when she’d known she was right.
She had to walk a while. She noticed in an abstract kind of way that the sky was changing with every second that passed, and the thought flashed through her mind that she might remember this night later on when she saw a sunset like this.
Or maybe that was another diversion.
Focus. Face it. Work it out and put it away. It’s never going to be gone until you do.
“You’re right,” she said. “I listened, and I shouldn’t have listened. It’s no excuse, but I’d spent twenty-one years being a good girl, doing the right thing. When we got caught . . . it was like I’d known it was going to happen, that I was going to have to pay. I knew that wasn’t what my life could be. Or maybe I just wasn’t grown up enough. On some level, I was doing for that entire summer what you did tonight. Preparing to walk out the whole time.”
“Could you say it again,” he said, “without that part about me?”
“Yeah, well, I guess neither of us is perfect. I know I wasn’t.”
It had happened two months into that stolen summer. She’d worked at her father’s company every day, in Customer Service because he believed in Establishing Work Habits and Understanding the Business and Starting at the Bottom, and had been yawning by afternoon. Because every night, she’d been meeting Evan.
She hadn’tmeantto do it that way. She just . . . hadn’t mentioned him to her parents. Evan would look at her sometimes, when she’d get up from his bed at twenty minutes to midnight and pull on her clothes, and her eyes would drop under that steady, serious gaze. But he never said anything.
Now, she knew why. He hadn’t wanted to push her to choose: her parents or him. He’d known how that would work out. Instead, he’d grab his jeans and T-shirt, and she’d climb on the back of his motorcycle again, ride back to the City Beach parking lot where she’d left her car, and kiss him goodbye until, like Cinderella, she’d all but hear the clock start to chime. Then she’d drive home, come in the door at the stroke of midnight and go in to tell her parents she was home, to kiss her mother goodnight. So her mom could tell if she’d been drinking. That part was obvious, however sneaky her mother thought she was being.
When she did have dinner at home, her mother would ask her what she’d been doing, and Beth would tell her about movies she’d never seen, restaurants she’d never tried, shopping trips she’d never taken. She didn’t tell about sitting in the stern of the battered old rowboat, about looking at Evan’s shoulders and arms and chest as he rowed, listening to the slap of oars on the water, the barely-therezip-zipof dragonflies zooming past, the raucous call of a jay. About walking the high trails in the long, soft Idaho twilight, their footsteps cushioned by years’ worth of pine needles, while the wind sang its song in the pines. About dancing on the scarred wooden floor of a cowboy bar far off the main road, not caring what was playing, just wanting to be in Evan’s arms, to have him spin her around in circles and then pull her up close again. About lying with him after making love in his tiny apartment and telling him about law school, about her fears and her hopes on that one subject, and wishing they could just go on like this, could stay in their bubble.
Never looking too closely. Never digging too deep.
And then those last couple weeks. After Riley had died, and Evan had driven all day to Portland, and then all night back to Wild Horse to bring Dakota home. He’d spent the next three days with Dakota and Russell, and when he’d finally come for Beth again, had been nearly silent.
She wasn’t seeing him every night anymore, because he had someplace else he needed to be. With them, and Beth wasn’t invited. She’d tried not to be hurt, had told herself he was processing, that Evan wasn’t a talker. He’d wanted to make love, had come to her every time like she was his sanctuary and his release, and she’d been glad to be that for him.
But he hadn’t talked, and when she’d tried to ask, he’d gone even quieter. So she’d stopped asking.
That last night, then. Nearly two weeks after the terrible day when Evan had told her about Riley and she’d seen pain in his eyes she couldn’t bear and hadn’t been able to help. That night, after hours of dancing and too many beers, he drove the lake road too fast, took the curves too steeply, and half of her wanted him to stop, while the other half wanted him to go faster, to turn harder. To make her feel the wind and the wildness, to burn out his pain and let her watch it go.
When they reached his house, he grabbed her before she was all the way off the bike, pushed her down on the seat, and come down over her. Dark, desperate, and dangerous. He picked her up at last and carried her through the door into his tiny apartment, pulled her down on the floor, and made love to her there, neither of them getting their clothes off, the sex urgent, strong, and one bare step this side of the line. He pulled her under into the darkness until she was gasping, until she was way too close to scared, thrilled to her darkest limit. She had four orgasms, he had two, and when they finished, they were sprawled on the floor, her cheek pressed to the wood and Evan on top of her, pulling her hair back from her neck and kissing her there like she was his and he was branding her.
“Let’s get married,” he said in her ear. “Now. Let’s do it.”
“Wh-what?”
“I mean it. Tomorrow. Go to the courthouse and do it.”
“But . . .” She rolled out from under him, scrabbled for her clothes. “My parents. Law school.”
He pulled his jeans up but made no more move to get dressed. He just sat, his forearms on his knees, and watched her. “You don’t have to go to law school now, do you? You could wait a year, or even two. You don’t need your parents. We can save. You can get loans.”
It was like he was saying, “We can join the circus.” She said, “Evan. I can’t . . . how could I do that?”
“Easy. We just do. You don’t want to sneak around? That’s fine by me. I don’t want to sneak around either. So how about this? Tomorrow, instead of meeting me at the beach, I come to your house. I come to the front door. We tell your parents we’re in love and we want to get married. Now. Soon. If you want the dress and all, we’ll do that. I’ve got some money saved.”
“I . . .” She couldn’t think. She was fumbling to button her blouse, and Evan was brushing her hands aside, doing it for her, and then his hands were closing over hers.
“I love you,” he said. “I don’t want you to go to Seattle without me.”
She didn’t want to say “but law school” again. She didn’t know what else to say, though, so she just looked at him. “I love you too,” she said. “Couldn’t you . . . maybe you could come to Seattle instead. You lived there before.”
“And not get married,” he finished for her.
